To level the playing field
by WallflowerPerks
Summary: Why can't he forgive her? A drabble that will most likely end in AU.
1. Chapter 1

_**To level the playing field **_

**A/N: Newsroom withdrawal is why. Unapologetic drabble ahead. Possibly more to come.**

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_i._

Will McAvoy tears apart the recipt for the Tiffany & Co. engagement ring with a nagging sense of discontent (he refuses to call it guilt). It was supposed to be a prank. It was supposed to be a contingency plan for that ridiculous opposition research which she had no doubt turned into a skeleton dig for leverage. He kind of likes being one step ahead of her (or so he likes to call it that) and in a really masochistic way, he finds a slither of reassurance on the look on her face whenever he hangs her mistake on the invisible pulpit.

She crumples a little. He sees a quiver pass her and her eyes dart down to the floor in regret. Every single time.

It makes him want to close the imposed distance between them. It triggers this impulse to just wrap his arms around her, to breathe her in. But it's just that and nothing else. He doesn't act on any of them, and he still thinks he can't forgive her yet.

Why can't he forgive her?

After his agent returned with the deftly concealed package earlier, he reassessed his plan. It shouldn't take long for her to uncover that mishappen Fox offer. In a twisted way, he could not wait to show her the ring. And it was truly a stunning piece of jewelry, if he had to be honest. Maybe if she hadn't fucked up the way she did in the first place, she'd already have it on her finger.

He'd planned on popping it out in the middle of her impassioned monologue (at least he got that bit right). What he didn't expect was how he could not, for the life of him, announce to her the big joke afterwards. Not with the way her eyes gave away all that wistfulness. Not with the way she looked liable to collapse into sorry little pieces in front of him. Not with the way how he could finally see what Charlie had meant when he called her physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.

Flipping open the lid of the small box didn't really give him the satisfaction he had anticipated. Quite the opposite, actually.

Maybe she shouldn't have blown his heart into smithereens. And maybe what he did was bordering on cruel. That much he was willing to concede.

_ii._

_Do it for me, Will._

It's been a week. Seven days. That's seven days and she has said nothing about the message. No comment, no acknowledgement, no change in demeanor whatsoever. Well, he specifically asked that she not mention it ever - but still.

And the ring is burning a hole in his office desk.

Stupid, stupid ring.

Habib would probably tell him that it took getting as high as the CNN tower to admit his feelings but a.) he can't tell another living soul that he was fucking wasted that night and b.) it wasn't entirely true.

It was the ring. That stupid ring. So when her voice echoed in his ear, with resolve fragile and unyielding at the same time, to not fuck up that broadcast, something snapped and he knew he couldn't deny her anything.

But a week has passed.

One step forward and two steps back - they have it down to a science.

_iii._

If his ammunition is the blasted ring, hers is the notepad.

_It's not. But it can be. _

He wanted to kiss her the minute she whipped it out. He also wanted to break things in his office out of rage. That infuriating, maddening, frustrating woman.

Still, nothing happens. They've entered an impasse punctuated only by lingering looks and voices lowering an octave whenever they're in close proximity.

Then one of their reporters gets stabbed while covering a riot down south.

Her face goes blank. The newsroom falls into chaos. He watches and something clicks.

She calls in sick the next day.

He calls bullshit and storms to her apartment.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks for being so patient with this. I'll definitely continue writing more fic. Maybe something more linear and considerably lengthier. But for now, short drabbles will suffice. **

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_i._

She opens the door for him wearing a light camisole and leggings that hug her lithe figure in ways that make him want to run the fuck away and sulk in his office. Or annoy Habib with his mind games. But she lets him in without a word. Offers him a drink like nothing was wrong in the world.

They live under a banner of avoidance and neither of them is willing to admit to it.

_ii._

Mackenzie McHale was not afraid of anything. Except for jellyfish, which was completely normal, thank you very much. Very few things rattled her or struck her composure. For someone who looked so delicate, wispy, and doe-eyed, she tackles things with a steely resolve and plows through life with a reckless intuition that helped her navigate through the tricky landscape of broadcast journalism.

She's been called annoyingly ethical in more than one occasion. Even in a war zone in the Middle East, she'd been worried about selecting the right stories to chase after while every other reporter in Afghanistan jumped at the smallest signs of chaos to feed the wire.

Very few things in life rattled her. Among them were the fine mistake she crafted with Will McAvoy, and well, getting stabbed and nearly dying while covering a protest in Islamabad.

_iii._

_I work 30 feet from the life I could have had if I hadn't been so stupid._

It was a flurry of dust, people, and violent shouting. But everything, including the harsh afternoon sun was a muted setting for the foreground of pain blooming at her side. She collapsed and her attacker escaped, blending in the general chaos. Jim and the others desperately tried to clear her space, implored her to keep her damn eyes open.

Oh but she felt so heavy. And the pain was starting to feel secondary. Something was luring her into unconsciousness. If she just closed her eyes for a moment, she'd be okay.

So she did.

She drifted in and out after that. She remembers a lot of activity, a lot of shouting, a lot of pain, and she remembers Billy. What was he doing in the OR? Sweet Billy staying at her line of sight the entire time and the doctors operating on her middle didn't seem to mind. He held her gaze as her vision swam lazily. Why did he look so forlorn? Everything was fine. After all of this, they'd be in the recovery room and the nurse would hand a squirming bundle wrapped in downy blankets and he'd still be there.

Only she wakes up to a dull ache and an empty room. And maybe it was just the drugs talking, but she thinks she'd do anything to live in that hallucination again.

_iv_.

Few words were exchanged between them. He states the obvious.

"You called in sick today?"

She nods. "Any news on David?"

"He should be fine," he replies.

She knows he's onto something. Three years is such a long time coming for this, she thinks. Being a seasoned journalist before hitting 35, she knew how to kill a story, and she knew how to guilt trip Jim into submission. Even Charlie doesn't know about the stabbing, and her experience in the Middle East was downplayed as much as her sheer force of will could take.

And for some incomprehensible reason, she's tired. Tired of lying to him by omission. There was a tiny, persistent voice at the back of her head that told her he deserved to know, that if things had turned out differently, he'd have been embedded with shrapnel too. So she takes her place opposite him on the couch.

"We were covering a Shiite protest in Islamabad three years ago..."

_v._

_I deserved what I got._

There are days when she simply braced herself from whatever punishment Will threw at her. She easily swallowed the cold shoulder, put on a brave face at the embarrassing contract he had arranged then, and she just shrugged at the image of assorted women hanging on his arm.

But there are also days when she gets weary of being saddled with her mistake.

Take for instance, her first reaction to being used by a man to further his political ambitions was to accept it as penance.

And of course, there was the ring.

_vi._

The ring was burning a hole in his pocket. It grew heavier, and he, more hyperaware of its weight as she presses on with her story. And he thinks, maybe it's high time to level the playing field.


End file.
